What I Learned at Our First Pitch Slams

Posted: by chrisshipley on March 11th, 2010 | No Comments »

Categorized: Chris Shipley, G/Score, Innovate!Europe

Last week, Guidewire Group  kicked off the Innovate 2010 program with Pitch Slam events in Zaragoza and Madrid.  In all, 22 companies presented their businesses in our fast-paced, 5-minute format designed to quickly tease out a company’s market opportunity, unique differentiation, and execution against plans.  As company’s pitch the business, our esteemed judges evaluate the startups using our G/Score methodology.

To refresh your memory, the G/Score is an assessment of a company’s business opportunity and market traction at a point in time. The seven-factor score looks at overall concept, market opportunity and challenges, product and business execution, team and business model.  The G/Score is not intended to be a predictor of success or to be a substitute for diligence.  It is a gauge of potential and performance.

Since introducing the G/Score (first privately to hundreds of executives and entrepreneurs and then publicly earlier this year), we’ve been asked a lot of questions, as you would expect, about the efficacy of the G/Score.  Is it “accurate”?  Does it successfully predict winners?  And perhaps the most incredulous one: How can you judge a company in just 5 minutes?!

In a world as fraught with execution risk, hard work and luck, it’s difficult to know what “accurate” might mean in the context of a startup business.  The G/Score isn’t a measure like weight or height that can be compared to an absolute scale.  Startups have no absolute scale.  But the G/Score does accurately assesses where a company is today.  At what stage is product development?  How complete is the team?

Does this accurate assessment predict success? I’d argue that the G/Score is an assessment of potential.  Continued execution on the business, smart reaction to the market, and a commitment to product excellent drive success.

Most importantly, it turns out, The G/Score provides a common language and a foundation for constructive conversations between entrepreneurs and the marketplace.  And that’s what makes the G/Score a valuable tool in assessing companies in 5-minute Pitch Slams or in hour-long one-on-one meetings.

Every day, startups submit their businesses to quick judgment from investors, customers, potential partners.  They do it at events like the Innovate!2010 Pitch Slams, at conferences, competitions, and meetups.  Often, the judging criteria is little more than a gut feeling and a wet finger int he air.

What we’ve found in just a very short time is that the G/Score gives a judging panel – and ultimately with the people who are in a position to invest, partner, and otherwise support these young companies – a standardized way of thinking about a company that supplements instincts and directs the conversation to a productive and constructive dialog about the business.

Over the course of two Pitch Slam events in Spain, the quality of comments and questions put forward by the judges and audience was substantive to the company’s position and traction in the market.  Gone were the pot shots and gut feelings that are so often center stage when “experts” sit in public judgment of startups, and along with it the defensiveness that entrepreneurs often project when they’re under the spotlight of such random scrutiny.

In short, the G/Score worked to change the tenor of the dialog and every startup, whether top scoring or newly rising, could take away valuable feedback and constructive advice from the judging panel.

As you might expect, not every company has perfect pitch.  So another key learning from the evening is that entrepreneurs must continually fine-tune their company presentations, and if they tune to the G/Score, we believe they will be communicating more effectively the potential and execution excellence of their companies.

Guidewire Group strives to make the G/Score methodology and criteria transparent so that entrepreneurs understand clearly how they are being assessed.  We provide training videos that describe the score and provide advice on how to present a company for the purpose of being scored. Use these materials to hone your own business presentation, whether you’re pitching for a G/Score or selling your first products.

By tuning into the G/Score, you are stating clearly and as objectively (at least as objectively as a thing as tenuous as a startup can be) what your business is all about, how you will win the market, your commitment to technology and business execution, and the team that will drive your success.

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Panels to watch at SXSW

Posted: by carlacthompson on March 6th, 2010 | No Comments »

Categorized: Carla Thompson, Events

This post originally appeared in Austin Startup.

If you’ve been to SXSW before, you’re well aware of the glut of panels and parties. There is simply too much to do and too many places to be at once. The conference tries to alleviate the hectic nature with some pre-planning, offering the ability to build your own schedule on their website. But the technology is clunky and laborious; I know my eyes started to glaze over pretty quickly. So in the interest of preserving your sight and sanity, I thought I’d share some panels that jumped out at me.

Friday, March 12

2pm – If you’re an out-of-towner, check out Why Austin is the Killer App. Bijoy Goswami gave an abbreviated version of this talk at Ignite Austin and it’s one of the best encapsulations of the Austin tech scene that I’ve heard yet. It’s the perfect way to kick off your SXSW adventure.

3:30pm brings our first where-to-go-now decision (it won’t be the last) with three strong prospects
-Do Cool Kids Leave When the Suits Arrive? – Would love to see revenue/business models re-enter the social media conversation. We’re not earning money with our smiles.
-How Your Brand Can Succeed in the New Web – From a man who knows, Brian Solis
-Is Technology Weakening Interpersonal Relationships? – One of my favorite ATX tech women is on the panel, Jenn Deering Davis; I know she’ll have great insights. And this is a potentially volatile topic.

9pm – If you have a Gold or Platinum pass, join me at the premiere of the Bill Hicks documentary, ‘American.’ And if you don’t know who Bill Hicks is, I can’t help you.

Saturday, March 13

This is likely the least hungover you’ll be during your time in Austin, so take advantage of it with a 9:30am panel, Innovation Overseas: The European Startup Environment. Marten Mickos is sure to provide some interesting perspective

2pm – Opening Keynote: Danah Boyd. Happy to see a woman kicking things off in the keynote presentations. And interested to hear her insights on being publicly private in social networks. Or privately public.

3:30pm – Another good problem to have – Media Armageddon or Ze Frank? The juxtaposition is glaring: old media or web pioneer? I may hop between the two.

5pm – How To Spark a Movement in the 21st Century, from the folks at Meetup. Could be really thought provoking. If it isn’t, you’ll find me at one of the happy hours.

Sunday, March 14

Things look a little uglier this morning. You’re feeling the multiple happy hours from yesterday. And there’s a gauntlet of panels to face today. Rub some dirt on it, as my father used to say, and get back in the game.

9:30am – Get those synapses firing with some heady fodder: Exploiting Chaos or Story.Next with Dr. Sanjay Gupta (he’s famous!). The Adobe Sunday Brunch is also at this time, so you can refuel with breakfast tacos as needed.

Four excellent sessions at 11am:
-2009 Iran Election will hopefully settle an ongoing argument I’m having about social media’s true impact on real-world events
-Monkeys with Internet Access because I’ve been wanting to hear Clay Shirky.
-Online News of Tomorrow because I like Jeff Jarvis
-Yes Mr. Lessig, We Can Change Politics (11:20am) because I’m a political nerd

12:30pm – Though it’s clearly on the film track, A Conversation with Michel Gondry is listed in Interactive events. One of the most innovative and creative minds working today – a don’t miss.

3:30pm – *Cue self-serving segment* Beyond Algorithms: Search and the Semantic Web. Reasons to attend: I’m on the panel and have a history of arguing with Barak Berkowitz. And I’m clearly the least accomplished person in attendance. Check out the bios of my fellow panelists.

6pm – Get your geek on at the Data Cluster Meetup before you head out into the night. Sponsored by Rackspace, Infochimps, Wolfram Alpha, and Factual.

This is the best party night of the bunch, so go forth and enjoy. Mashable, PBS, Guy Kawasaki, Gowalla, Microsoft – hope you trained your liver last night.

Monday, March 15

I won’t lie to you – this morning is going to hurt. I’ll leave a bottle of Excedrin and a bag of breakfast tacos for you by the t-shirt stand downstairs.

If you can manage a 10am, go easy on yourself and check out The Art of Eating In. But if that’s too early, go to Making Content Relevant To Me at 11am.

Gary Vaynerchuk is talking at 12:30pm. I have no idea about what but it’s sure to interesting.

Then Ev Williams has the keynote slot at 2pm. Let’s gang up on him and force him to answer revenue questions.

3:30pm brings our last where-to-go-now conundrum (Thank God – I’m getting weary)
-‘Seed Combinators’, with favorite local Josh Baer
-AI 2010 because I’m a sucker for robots
-My Three-Year Old is My Usability Expert, because this seems a fascinating topic

Did I say Sunday was the best party night? It might actually be Monday. Wired, Rackspace, TechKaraoke, GeekyBeach, Gowalla – even New Orleans is throwing a party tonight.

Tuesday, March 16

Last day! It’s a short one too so hang in there.

11am – The Chaos Scenario. Because I’ll listen to pretty much any NPR contributor. And because we’ll all be intimately familiar with the concept of chaos by this point.

2pm – Daniel Ek of Spotify gives the last Interactive keynote, in an interview with Eliot Van Buskirk.

There’s a closing party at 8pm. And then we all meander back into the real world, hopefully sharper, wiser, and only slight worn down at the edges.

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Check This

Posted: by carlacthompson on March 5th, 2010 | No Comments »

Categorized: Carla Thompson, Events, Startups

**Update: Check out Mashable’s screenshots of the upcoming Foursquare app update for next week. Could possibly alter your vote.

MG Siegler posited last week that location apps are going to be the big bang at SXSW this year, achieving Twitter-like buzz level. This seems a pretty safe bet; as I’ve mentioned before, location apps are without a doubt the sector to watch in 2010.

As I was checking in this morning at Galaxy Cafe [sidenote: love this place. Please patronize them, Austin folk.], it occurred to me that the buzz-worthy question next week won’t be if you’re checking in, but how. Are you going Foursquare all the way, using their rumored shiny new update? Or will you stick local, checking in on Austin-based Gowalla? Or will you quicken your – and your friends’ – path to insanity by checking in on both?

I conducted a head-to-head of the services a while back and seemed to settle on Foursquare as my app of choice. But here am I still using Gowalla. I just can’t decide. Gowalla has a better – much better – UI. Foursquare has more of my friends signed up. Gowalla has items to collect, a feature that’s grown on me. Foursquare has the game as more of a centerpiece, an appeal to my competitive side. I could go on. But I won’t.

Why does this even matter? Because checking in at SXSW is going to be more important than normal. Attendees’ schedules are much more organic and evolving than at standard tech conferences. In short, one wanders where the day takes you. So word about a panel that’s turned feisty or a party that’s packed bring more people to the scene. This was achieved with Twitter in the past, a method that seems a little antiquated in the face of location apps. This year, not only will you need to know which parties to attend but which app to use to find out about those parties. Could SXSW crown a location app winner through sheer popularity this year?

Let’s see what the early buzz is. If you’re going to SXSW next week, which app will you use to check in?

Which app will you use to check in at sites during SXSW?

View Results

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Be the Peloton: My TEDxAustin Talk

Posted: by chrisshipley on February 26th, 2010 | No Comments »

Categorized: Business Models, Chris Shipley, Entrepreneurship, Observations

Several days later and I’m still reacting to the amazing day that was TEDxAustin.  In a day jammed with wonderful ideas, insightful speakers, engaged audience, and some stunning performances, I had the privilege of sharing one of my ideas within the event’s banner “Play Big.”

Being the contrarian I am, of course, my talk centered on the idea of remaining small.  Here’s my case:

Consider the sumo wrestler.  He’s one big boy.  Professional sumo wrestlers – of which there are 700 in Japan’s traditional training centers, or heyas - weigh in from 250 to 500 pounds.  They are very competitive in a decidedly individual competition, and while they are strong and quick in short bursts, they can be cumbersome and slow outside the ring.  Maybe most importantly, they are bound by centuries of tradition.

Now, consider the peloton.  A compact team of athletes, the peloton leverages the strength of individual members to deliver benefit to the whole.  By working together, an well-architected peloton can reduce wind drag by as much as 40% to operate with greater efficiency and greater speed.  Throughout a race, the peloton can react to changing conditions and proactively seize new opportunity.  In a word, pelotons are entreprenurial.

In the world of business, the sumo is a big company, which is resource rich, with strong brand power and great global reach.  With a rich legacy in the market, big companies – like tradition-bound sumo wrestlers – are well rooted, and while that provides great stability, it can also make change difficult for the big company.

The peloton, as you might have now guessed, is a small business.   They may well be resource constrained, but they tend to be on a first-name basis with their customers.  Small businesses have a strong connection to their local community, and yet they often play in global markets. With fewer and thinner layers of decision making, small businesses are adaptive.  They can be risk takers.  And often because of their constrained resource and their close ties with customers, small businesses must be incredibly innovative to serve their markets.

As entrepreneurs, we aspire to be big businesses.  That, after all, is what investors look for and what the public markets reward.  The Fortune 500, we often assume, are the drivers of the global economy.  In 2006, the Fortune 500 had aggregated revenues of more than $9 trillion, with profits of $610B.  With nearly 25 million employees world wide, the Fortune 500 earns $368,000 per worker.  In big energy, that number can reach as high as $1m per worker and in the retail sector it drops to about $200,000 per employee. If the Fortune 500 were a country, it would be the second largest economy in the world.

Impressive.  But let’s consider the other 29,599,500 businesses in America, business employing fewer than 500 people.  Most of these are sole proprietorship; only some 5.7M businesses have employees, but among them they employ nearly 115M workers and generate $22 trillion (yep, that’s more than 2x the Fortune 500 in the U.S. alone.) .  If you’re doing the math, that’s about $192,000 per employee.

We tend to think of big business at the head of the long tail of business.  I’d argue we turn that graph on its side.  The size of the ecosystem swirling around small business and the economic value created by it outstrips the Fortune 500.   In the U.S. alone, small business accounts for nearly half of the GDP.  Worldwide, small businesses in aggregate must certainly stand and the largest global economic force.

The entrepreneurs who start small businesses are arguably the most innovative.  Think of the market-changing, market-making innovations of the last 10 years.  Software as a Service, smart phones, eCommerce platforms and businesses, fundamental Web technologies and security systems, digital media and the DVR.  These, among many others, were developed not in big companies (in fact, many big companies failed to deliver products in these categories), but by small entrepreneurial businesses.

The irony is that the very thing that makes a big business “successful” is that thing that often prevents them from furthering their success.  Big businesses lumber under the weight of  their size, unable to move fast enough on their own.  That’s the good news for startups who become targets of acquisition, as big business consumer young companies like so many calories in order to fuel their innovation engine.

But what if there were a different model?  What if we rewarded companies not for getting big, but for being efficient engines of innovation, employment, and value creation?  Imagine for a moment the rise of the Fortune 500,000, those top small businesses that outperform the markets by performing well together, much like a peloton.

Individually, each small corporation is strong, highly adaptable, capital efficient, and profitable.  These strong businesses remain agile, able to pounce on new opportunities and deliver results without wading through layers of decision making and corporate process.

Best of all, they can easily partner with other strong small enterprises to tackle a market or create one.  Each small enterprise brings its unique and highly-tuned capability to the partnership.  At the risk of mixing my metaphors,  each small enterprise is a free atom that can bond with other organizations in a precise formula to attack a business opportunity.  They can decouple and re-attach to other organizations when new opportunities arise.

Collectively, they can be stronger and more competitive against lumbering large organizations than they ever could be on their own.  And, collectively, they can react more quickly and be more responsive to a changing market environment than large companies can.

With specialization to deliver expertise and collaboration to deliver complete market value, the peloton model of business will drive innovation and create economic value.

Whether today’s capital markets can be as reactive to this coming business change is an entirely different matter.

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G/Score: Prescriptive Not Predictive

Posted: by chrisshipley on February 24th, 2010 | No Comments »

Categorized: G/Score, Startups

Over the past month, we’ve been rolling out the G/Score framework with partners, training G/Score assessors, and introducing entrepreneurs to the concept of a standardized, objective, transparent assessment methodology.  The feedback from literally hundreds of conversations has been gratifying and tremendously helpful as we work to make the G/Score a useful and prescriptive tool for entrepreneurs and a valuable vetting mechanism for large organizations seeking to work more effectively with early stage companies.

And then, we got this question on our blog:

“Has the G/Score framework been evaluated against actual outcomes to determine how well it predicts the success/failure of early stage companies?”

When we parse the question, it’s clear that there are really two question on the table:

  1. “Can we use the G/Score to pick winners?” – Where ‘winner’ is a company that will receive venture funding and go on to generate outsized investor returns.
  2. “Can we rely on the G/Score to accurately assess a startup’s strengths and weaknesses?”

Candidly, the answer to the first question is “no.”

But then, that not what the G/Score is meant to do. The G/Score is a measure of a company’s potential and traction at a point in time. While a score might note significant market opportunity and a smart product offering, it is execution over time that drives to a successful outcome.

The G/Score’s seven factors, each rated on a four-point scale, work in combination to articulate a company’s achievement, potential and viability. No factor is weighted more heavily than another in the total scale. That weighting is left largely up to those who incorporate the G/Score into their own evaluations.

For example, a company seeking to acquire a technology may weight delivery of product to market more highly than business model, knowing that upon acquisition the technology will be integrated into the acquirer’s selling and pricing models. A serial startup executive may weight market opportunity most heavily, while looking for low-scoring teams who need the executive’s execution expertise.

By contrast, the answer to the second question is an enthusiastic, though anecdotal, “yes!” The G/Score measures where a company is today, against a clearly articulated ladder of achievement. And our observations of the more than 20,000 companies we’ve interviewed over the last 20 years indicates that if a company scores low and does nothing to address its weaknesses, it will most likely fail. But if a company works to address its weaknesses and improve its score, it dramatically increases its chance of not just surviving, but thriving.

The point is this: the G/Score doesn’t serve as a substitute for your own diligence, instincts or gap-fit analysis. It’s not intended identify a “good chemistry” between startup and investor, partner, or customer. It is, at its core, a uniform filter, a tool, that allows the individuals and organizations that work with startups to do that work more efficiently by helping them to quickly hone in on companies that meet their specific performance criteria.

We describe the G/Score as prescriptive for the entrepreneur because never has it been more clear what a company can do to move the needle on execution.  By clearly articulating the achievement required to score at each level in the four-point scale, the entrepreneur can immediately see the work ahead of him to improve his G/Score and advance his business.

Along the way, the G/Score had another interesting affect on the startup ecosystem. Because it normalizes the way we look at startup businesses and provides a common language to talk about companies, it changes the dialog in the market. Already we’ve found that the conversation between a company and an assessor hones in on issues that matter to the execution and performance of a business. Hard to articulate gut instincts – and worse, feedback as public performance – are replaced by serious questions about business execution and market potential. An entrepreneur’s defensiveness is replaced by desire for constructive feedback. The conversation is qualitatively more useful to everyone.

Every organization working with startups is likely to have a set of guidelines to help them evaluate early stage companies and match them to their specific interests. The G/Score is another tool in that arsenal, one that is open, transparent, and objective, and designed to be as helpful to the entrepreneur as to the company doing the evaluation.

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More info on the G/Score

Posted: by carlacthompson on February 24th, 2010 | No Comments »

Categorized: G/Score

Hey folks – just a quick note on the G/Score. Chris and Mike recorded a video walkthrough of the philosophy and methodology behind it, so if you’re looking for more info, this is a great place to start.

And while you’re at it, check out this one too, on optimizing your pitch for a G/Score.

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Next year, I vote for a drum circle

Posted: by carlacthompson on February 22nd, 2010 | 7 Comments »

Categorized: Carla Thompson, Events

It says something about Saturday’s TEDx Austin event that I’m still wondering how to describe it. It doesn’t help that other attendees represented the day in impressively creative ways. Check out Cesar Torres‘ gorgeous illustration of key phrases from the day and Austin Kleon’s sticky notes of the speakers. And for a complete rundown of who spoke about what, Jon Lebkowsky’s post is hard to beat. But the general vibe and conversations of the day don’t seem to translate well to a straight-up blog post. Lest you think I’m lazy, check out the event’s Facebook page, which features poems, mind maps, and stream-of-consciousness writings.

I know what you’re thinking: what kind of new-agey, hippie-dippy crap did you folks engage in? Well, there were no drum circles or controlled substances and no one waved crystals over our heads. But we’d probably have gone right along with it if there had been. It was a multi-faceted day, covering subjects from cancer to poverty to space travel to healthy eating. And each of these subjects was presented to us by a creative, intelligent, passionate expert on their area. So Dr. William Merrell made me care about sea walls and Galveston Bay and the ‘Ike Dike.’ Turk and Christy Pipkin got me excited for their documentary, ‘One Peace at a Time.’ Christopher Mueller almost lost me with his in-depth talk of genetic sequencing and analysis – until he pulled me back in with nifty computing analogies that tied the whole picture together. And while I may be biased, Chris Shipley’s concept of small businesses coalescing to solve big problems helped me imagine a whole new approach to the structure of the business world.

I think, though, that what set TEDx Austin apart was a decidedly personal aspect to the day. Interspersed with talks on space travel and genetics were musings on subjects that affect our psyches. Prenatal psychologist Carrie Contey spoke on the importance of taking ‘pauses’ in our daily lives – not simply for the sake of silence but to integrate the input our brain has been tasked with. Mark McKinnon talked not about the politics for which he’s known, but about luck and chance and keeping count of the beads in your jar. (You’ll have to trust me on that one until the video gets posted.) In a talk that spoke to everyone in the room, Steven Tomlinson mapped out finding your calling in life, rather than just a career. I’m really not sure why this man doesn’t have a cult of people following him around at all times. Once the videos are posted, put his at the top of your viewing list. And to top it all off, we were treated to two amazing musicians, John Pointer – a true one-man band – and Ruby Jane, a 15-year-old fiddler and singer of which I briefly considered becoming a groupie.

It was a truly unique, enjoyable day that left me energized, contemplative, and maybe just a little bit hippie-dippie. The organizers of TEDx Austin should be enormously proud of the finished product, especially considering most, if not all, of them worked for free. There was a fair amount of skepticism in the air going into the event – and a fair amount of bubbling excitement and energy at the end of the day. I’ll have to be bleeding from a major artery to miss it next year. If this is the future of tech conferences, sign me up.

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The Vortex: Busy little bees

Posted: by carlacthompson on February 18th, 2010 | No Comments »

Categorized: Carla Thompson, Week in Review

When The Vortex is ignored, it grows unwieldy. I had to write this just to clean out my link file.

-Buzz buzz buzz. Is this Google’s tacit apology for Wave? A knockoff of FriendFeed? Something I just can’t get excited about, no matter how hard I try? Call me naive, shortsighted or just plain dumb – I don’t get it. I cannot possibly fit one more stream into my day. And I rarely access Gmail in my browser. Plug it into my Facebook feed and then I could understand it a bit better. But how is it supposed to fit into my existing stream? No really, I’m asking – someone tell me!

**Update – They’re now being sued for it.

-I should start a regular column on the location apps market, as news is emerging almost constantly these days. While Foursquare’s traffic tripled in two months (that’s a hell of a stat), BusinessWeek declared it dead in the water. (Note to BizWeek: see ‘personalization of mobile experience’ for a hint.) My favorite though is the robbery meme that popped up yesterday, thanks to the launch of pleaserobme.com. I get the point they’re trying to make and yes, of course, we need to be cognizant about posting vacation notices to the public. But the cynic in me awaits the inevitable security solution the site’s creators are sure to pitch us.

-Just to prove to you I’m not a total grump, check out this advice on staying present in our bizarre new century. There’s some interesting stuff in here, like committing to ’single-tasking’ and keeping fewer tabs open.

Apps on the Radar

-If you’ve been to SXSW before, you know what a corn maze it can become. There are 10,000 panels, sessions, and parties to navigate, not to mention all the unofficial parties. I’m already needing a nap, just typing that. But a super-slick iPhone app has come out that does everything short of passing out your business card. What would make it even better is actual times connected to each session. But hey, I’m a control freak.

-Appsaurus may be old news but I’ve just stumbled upon it. Seems just the cure for those of us with iPhoneAppItis. (Sorry).

-If you have young ‘uns, you’ll care about this app. If you don’t, keep movin’.

-I’m a bit perplexed that there’s an entire app genre devoted to pretend-you’re-cooking games. Then again, it may be fun. For, you know, the ladies.

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Announcing the Innovate!100

Posted: by carlacthompson on February 11th, 2010 | No Comments »

Categorized: Events, Innovate!Europe, Startups

Guidewire Group is looking for early-stage companies that have what it takes to be named one of the world’s most promising startups. Our Innovate!2010 global competition will consist of Pitch Slams around the world, kicking off March 1st in Barcelona.

The top 100 companies chosen from these Pitch Slams will be featured in a prestigious list known as the Innovate!100 – and the best of the best will receive a share of prizes valued at nearly $250,000. In addition, every startup that applies will receive promotional exposure and free training designed to improve their chances of success.

We have scheduled Innovate!2010 Pitch Slams in a dozen European cities between March 1 and March 29, and additional events will be held in the US in the coming months. There will also be an online evaluation process for finalists that are not able to attend in person.

More information about how startups can enter the competition is available at Innovate100.com. We’re also accepting applications from qualified individuals who are interested in volunteering to judge, and registration is open if you’d like to sign up to attend a Pitch Slam so you can meet and mingle with the finalists.

Help us spread the word! You can find us on Twitter at @innovate100, as well as our Facebook and LinkedIn groups.

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The ‘S’ Word

Posted: by carlacthompson on February 5th, 2010 | No Comments »

Categorized: Carla Thompson, Events, Semantics

I was having dinner with friends last weekend and, while talking about my job and technology and such, one of them remarked, “I’m bored with technology these days. Where’s all the exciting stuff? I haven’t seen anything truly interesting in a long time.” He’s got a point. We’ve reached an odd point in technological innovation in which the future isn’t quite here yet but the past is no longer sufficient.

There is, however, a very real movement pushing us toward Internet v.2. It’s in development at universities and science centers the world over by some of the biggest brains in existence. It’s a framework that will fundamentally change the Internet as we know it. And it’s turned into the whipping boy of tech in recent years, primarily because it’s so complex and nebulous. Drumroll please, it’s…. semantic technology!

I spent last week in Silicon Valley at Web 3.0, a conference devoted to the use of semantic technologies online. Web 3 is not as technically driven as SemTech, the big daddy of semantic conferences. It’s designed, theoretically, to appeal to a broader audience and this year featured panels and speakers on social media, marketing, and advertising. It was a good conference overall, though I found myself wishing for a little less geekery. And I wasn’t alone; I heard anecdotally of an attendee expressing bewilderment at several of the acronyms being thrown around. Even the journalists there to cover the conference seemed flummoxed: Wired’s Epicenter writer Ted Greenwald writes as if he was dropped down onto Mars in the middle of the night.

I don’t mean that as an insult. There are only so many times you can throw around ‘RDF’ and ‘OWL’ before your audience gives up completely. Beneath all the geek-speak and acronyms is something truly exciting, truly game-changing. But the semantic community is having a hell of a time convincing the larger tech world of that.

There are a couple of good reasons for this. One, semantic technology isn’t an actual product; it’s the underpinning of many products. And no one wants to see underpinnings. They’re only interested in shiny facings. Two, applying semantics to the entire Internet is a daunting task and, to many, seems impossible. It’s a lot like artificial intelligence – lovely idea thanks but I’ll believe it when I see the dish-washing robot.

There’s another similarity semantics shares with AI and that’s the old truism that when it’s really working, you won’t know it. So all the conversations and conferences about NLP (natural language processing) and ontologies don’t mean squat to the average consumer – or even many plugged-in early adopters – until they see the resulting products of those acronyms in action.

Siri, a long-awaited personal assistant that finally went public today, is the most user-friendly and understandable application of semantics released to date. It’s a perfect example of technology working without cognizance from the user. Tell it what you want and it finds it – a restaurant, a movie, a taxi, the temperature. It works pretty damn well and it remembers who you are and where you live to deliver better results. Siri is semantics in action and an indicator of what awaits us with Internet v.2. No, it doesn’t work perfectly every time and no, it isn’t the ultimate in semantic products. It’s just the tip of the iceberg.

And what I sincerely hope is that it’s a crack in the intellectual facade of semantic technology. That it will bring the brains out of the university labs and into cubicles to start coding. It’s time to de-geek, sem geeks. Siri has shown what we’re capable of; now let’s start flooding the market with products.

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